mar dee graws

the cross-street where meg found the glove

this glove comes from my best friend’s mother, meg.  meg is absolutely amazing and lovely.  she is a fantastic glove-spotter and i can't thank her enough for supporting this blog.  thanks, meg!  well, one evening meg stopped by unexpectedly.  when i answered the door, i saw her standing on the porch holding a box.  i immediately knew what was in it.  i ushered her inside, gave her a huge hug, and eagerly took the box from her.  i opened the box to find a small black glove covered in leaves and other foliage.  it was accompanied by a blue beaded mardi gras necklace meant for my mother.  the glove was from... you guessed it!  mardi gras!  what a party glove!  i honestly cannot imagine what sights this glove has seen or what debauchery it has been a part of.  accordingly, i decided i must make it a playful glove.

thuh gluv on da gound

after cutting off the thumb (gasp!) and sewing up the side, i stuffed the glove and sewed the wrist part into a mouth.  i originally wanted to make the thumb into bewbs, but later decided against it.  instead, the thumb became a tongue, sticking out of the mouth, taunting and teasing any passersby.  perhaps the tongue hangs out because the glove has caught sight of a mardi gras honey trying to get some beads?  perhaps not.  either way, he/she (i couldn't tell!) has turned into quite the swinger.

please welcome...

LECH!

lech and teddy making eyes at you.

P.S. meg gives her commentary on lech: 

"Lech is wonderful. I especially love it's tongue. And by the way, we couldn't tell either. I think the whole Mardi Gras experience had gotten the best of Lech. It was about 3:00pm on Fat Tuesday when it was found. I'm sure it had been ...partying for 4 straight days. I'm not surprised that Lech's mouth is now in a frozen state of retching. In all honesty, I have to tell you that Dick is the one who found Lech. I had our whole family on the lookout. They will be glad to know how well things turned out for the little glove. Now I'm getting teary..."

SPRING BREEEAAAKKKKK

i apologize for my extended absence.  the past few months have been busy with grad school and student teaching.  buttttt i will not bore you with those things.  instead, why don't we talk of spring?  the flowers are blooming, people are sneezing, claritin never had so many admirers.  life is grand!

so you know what spring means?  SPRING BREEEAAAKKKKK!!  which is how i actually have the free time to make a glove doll and then post about it.  oh how i have missed having free time...

glove 1

i found this glove a long time ago when i was driving home from student teaching.  i spotted one glove near the baseball field in the street outside the school and immediately pulled over to snap a picture and grab it.  i hopped in my car with a big grin and kept driving home, only to spot *another* glove just a little ways down the road, near the curb.  by then, i had driven too far to pull over, so i flipped a u-turn (legal?) and headed back up the hill.

glove 2

after maneuvering through the school's parking lot and then driving out the other side, i was able to head back down the hill.  i pulled over again and retrieved the second glove.  it was the mate of the first!  twins!!  i honestly think the two gloves may have belonged to a student that was practicing sports on said baseball field, but who cares, the gloves were MINE!  MUAHHAHHAHAH!!!


several months later, i actually have the time to make the gloves into something awesome. the gloves are sporty, made of leather and some sort of stretchy synthetic, with nice padding in the palm area.  the wrists had elastic bands with a velcro closures.  i decided to cut those off because i've sewn through rubber before, and trust me it's not fun.

so after cutting off the wrists (that sounds terrible), i cut the fingers (OH GOD) off one of the gloves, leaving the palm connected to a thumb.  i sealed the top part of the palm/thumb to create a head with a very long nose.  then i sewed the fingers on top of the head to make a very striking headdress.  after stuffing the second glove and attaching the head, i added button eyes and a pompom nose. i started out thinking it would be a bird, but it ended up more like a moose dog.  i think he's pretty cute, apart from his massively lopsided face (he has an enormous right cheek that i have concealed in this well-posed glamor shot).

enjoy the new post, because i don't know when i'll be able to post again.  i've miss you guys!
and now, i present to you....

Mooseldorf!!

:(

i saw a total of four gloves while driving to and from student teaching today.  each one was in the middle of a busy road, and it would have been too dangerous to rescue them.


four times the heartache.

extra-long spooky post!

happy halloween everyone!  i love halloween because i always feel like dressing up, but this is the one time of year where i can do it without looking like a total idiot.  this year i'm a peacock and i get to stick my hair straight up.  it's awesome.  well anyways, this is a super-de-duper special post because we have two guest gloves joining us today.  my brother steve found the first glove on a dark sidewalk in palms.

 "Murder was in the air.  What other explanation could there be for the haphazard nature of this glove's disposal without the company of it's twin?  As I strode to the apartment of an acquaintance, something about this item screamed that I must rescue it from the sidewalk's cruel clutches and deliver it to my sister for further study and rehabilitation."

here's the second glove, found by my good friend lindsey (see: glove cake) somewhere in orange county.  i'm not fancy and so can't upload this photo from my phone to the computer.  this was the best i could do.  lindsey e-mailed me a story to accompany the picture (edited but left mostly intact)
 Glove Story: Hello beautiful friend, I found this riding glove stranded by its lonesome outside of Trader Joes in Irvine.  I walked past it and did a double-take to make sure its mate and owner were not to be seen.  Of course, I thought of you instantly, snapped a picture with my phone, and picked it up!  Now I'm sure you will transform it into a majestic new creature.

hokay, so since it's october and halloween is next weekend, i felt it more than appropriate to make a spooky frankenstein-ish glove doll fit for the holiday.  i transformed the diesel glove from steve, into a vampirenstein with many legs and two bloody fangs.  ethel, the glove from lindsey, became a spooky spiky cape.  

have you ever seen such an adorable monster?  Deathel will kill you with cuteness!!!  and don't worry, he doesn't bite (unless you aren't looking).

happy halloweeeeeeen!

glovekin!

angst

you know when you really want to do something but you can't because it would be bad for you?  that's how i was feeling on tuesday.

i taught 3 science classes that day and they were fantastic.  the students loved my oobleck (google it!!) lab and overall, i was satisfied that they understood what i was teaching and were engaged in the task.  as an added bonus, i got to go home early because i was allowed to skip this week's tuesday staff development meeting!!

on my drive home i sang along in the car to fleetwood mac, and when i reached PV drive, i spotted two beautifully preserved gloves right by the center divider.  there was no way i could stop to get them without risking bodily harm, so i just drove on.

this has happened to me several times now, and i always feel bad when i see a glove but cannot rescue it.  i only hope that i can rescue some gloves while i'm up in davis this weekend.  fingers crossed!

part one

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!

what a great day in the world of homeless gloves! about a week ago, i spotted a glove on silver spur road while i was driving. it was in the center divider between the two lanes (some random neutral space protected by the double line forcefield). several days later, it seemed as if a second glove had appeared nearby. and still later, i spotted a third glove on pv drive near hawthorne! after about a week of driving up and down silver spur road and longing to rescue the glove, i decided to take action.

today was already an exceptional day, since it was my first day of graduate school (ooooo smarty smart student-pants!). anyway, after getting back from my evening class, i waited til it was dark enough and then proposed an adventure to my dad. "dad, will you come on an adventure with me? i want to rescue some gloves." "right now?" and dad agreed to drive me. now i'll only tell you about the first part of the story and leave a little somethin' for you to look forward to.

i grabbed my camera, the flashlight, and a baggie for the dirty gloves. i was ready for action! we drove down silver spur and turned into that asian church thing and parked in the parking lot.

cars sped up and down the street with their beamy lights illuminating the road as they went. as each car passed, the headlights showed the two gloves in the middle of the road. just as i was handing my dad the flashlight and camera to make a run for the gloves, he said "no way am i going to let you go out there and risk your life!" and so, my brave father put his life on the line for my weird glove obsession, and ran out into the road and rescued the two gloves from peril.

fun fact: there was some sort of manhole cover where we stood by the side of the road. it smelled real bad.

meet the first glove:

Richter

first southern california glove!

i am holed up at home feeling very under the weather. that says a great deal, considering the weather today has been excessively gloomy. i just got back from getting antibiotics (i went to the urgent care center with mom earlier to see a doctor). i feel a whole lot better now. yay, mucinex!!

oh yea, and i sent my laptop to be repaired because the hinge has started break. thus, i will be writing this blog entry from the family desktop. hope it works out alright.

now, on to the glove! this one glove gets extra special attention because 1. it happens to be the very first lonesome glove found in southern california, and 2. tony found it, not me. as you know, i do not like to take glove donations. however, i decided to accept this glove gift because tony gets really grossed out by my dirty glove obsession and it must have been very difficult for him to overcome his anxieties to pick this glove up. he also took a picture of it in the natural habitat. bonus!

the glove in question was found on the night of may 15 near the junction of avenue I and elena avenue in riviera village. it sat in tony's trunk until approximately 1 a.m. whereby it transferred into my possession. after wrapping it in paper towels, i transported it home and put it in the wash. the italian black leather glove with cashmere lining did not dry completely in the dryer, and had to sit out for several extra hours. the glove, unwilling to be rehabilitated without a fight, left a permanent stain on the porcelain in the dryer. (note the hand-shaped stain) also, during the course of sewing the glove, i broke two needles. clearly, this glove did not want to be tamed!

i decided this glove reminded me of a raven, so i made it into a bird with a toucan-type beak and big, yellow, vacant eyes. eyes you can get lost in. get lost in and forget your troubles.. yes....

what an exotic Berd!

the underdog

hello all! here's the second glove from the davis trip. i was biking from tibet nepal to the quad to read a book in the sunshine when i spotted the glove at the intersection of 3rd and F. it had been run over by several cars and was flat as a pancake. i almost passed it by, knowing it would be terribly torn up and filthy, but i stuck to my oath to rescue gloves. i pulled my bike over, took a few photos, waited for the intersection to clear, and scampered out into the street to grab it.
my assumptions were correct: it was full of holes and the worse for wear. when i put it through the wash, the aged elastic crumbled and came off, and i had to pick it out of the washing machine by hand. thankfully, no harm done to the machine! since it was a leather work glove, it proved difficult to repair the holes because the material was so hard to get a needle through. i sewed the holes, stuffed it, and added button eyes. the seams made a perfect little half smile, so i added some teeth, and Wuncle Ugly was done.

here he is babysitting.

success!

well, i know it's been a very long time since my last glove post, so thank you for being patient with me. i made a trip up to my alma mater last week and was very fortunate to find several gloves in just a few days' time! i drove up to davis on tuesday and found my first glove the very next day. on wednesday morning, i went on the davis bike loop and had a wonderful ride. the sun was shining, the gentle wind kept me cool, and the flowers were blooming all over town. everything was perfect to begin with, but i found a glove at an elementary school making it possibly the best bike loop ever!

inspired by jessica and emily's dinosaur costumes for picnic day, i decided to make a dinosaur glove doll! his name is Mr. T Rex.

attn:

stay tuned in the next few days for a huge glove update!!!

the graduate glove lady

well, i've graduated, and now i'm a boring glove-obsessed graduate with nothing to do. two days ago, while i was biking home with Jessica, i made her stop and wait for me to rescue a glove i saw on B and 7th. i almost rode right past the glove because it was turned inside-out and the fingers weren't showing. however, being a diligent glove-seeker, i decided to double check. my intuition paid off and what i saw on the street was indeed a glove! it took me a while to finally get to sewing since i had finals and packing to do. i also had some difficulty coming to a decision about what kind of doll to make, but inspiration struck when i realized the pinky finger of the glove was worn through and i couldn't stuff it. aha, brilliant! i could turn the pinky into a turkey wattle and make a turkey doll! the wrist opening made a nice bird foot, and the rest of the fingers serve as effective, albeit awkward, tail feathers. i rummaged through my buttons and found a nurse hat and decided to make a glove doll to dedicate to my sister, Caroline. give a hearty hello to Nurse Turkey!

the tip-off

yesterday, my wonderful roommate Emily tipped me off to the location of a glove near campus. i was very glad that she didn't bring me the glove, because i have decided that i will only rescue lost gloves that i myself find. however, i will take tip-offs if people see lost gloves around.

i left early for class so i would have time to snatch up the glove before anyone else saw it. the bitter cold of the morning didn't bother me, as i was too excited about my quest for the glove. emily gave very good directions, and i found it with no problem. it was casually draped on a wooden fence near campus, no doubt placed there by a good samaritan who figured the owner would return. the glove is black leather with cashmere lining, and it is in great condition. now here is where i expect a little controversy: why didn't i leave the glove where it is? it's obviously an expensive glove and someone must be missing it. to you who ask, i give this answer: if indeed the glove is valuable, then the owner should be more careful with his or her possessions. if it was a wallet i definitely would return it. but no, it's a glove, and easily replaceable. i have a mission to rescue lost gloves, rehab them, and give them a good home, and i will not be dissuaded!

now, back to the glove story.

i have so many ugly gaudy buttons, that i thought this would was the perfect time to finally use them! i gave the glove sparkly eyes and earrings, and placed her hands upon her hips to give her a 'tude. she is also wearing a kitty barrette in her hair because she's a crazy cat lady. oddly enough, i just realized this glove smells like my grandma's house. weird.

here she is, posing in the refracted sunlight, gazing away wistfully.

she is beautiful, she is mighty, she is Parm.

a pair's innuendo

well, you know how i had hives and i was hoping i would find a glove to make my day better? it turns out that i found two gloves that very same day! and even better, it was a complete pair! so although the gloves were not lonely, they were nevertheless abandoned and needed a new home. unfortunately i found them after a bout of rain so they were soggy, covered in grass, and one of them had a worm on it! eeeeew! it's quite unlike me to touch nasty things, but i knew i had to do it for the sake of lonely gloves everywhere! i had a plastic grocery bag with me just in case i came upon icky gloves, so i picked the two gloves up like i would dog poo (i.e., inside-out bag used as a barrier between hand and gross object). after smiling the entire bike ride home, i hung up the gloves to dry on the clothesline in the backyard.

once they had sufficiently dried outside, i whacked them with a stick a few times, then gave them a thorough wash and dry. i stuffed them with fiberfill, freshly purchased from walmart (blech!). since they are a pair, one is male and one is female. i've decided that right-handed gloves are girls and left-handed gloves are boys, so currently i have 2 girl gloves and 3 boy gloves. well, enough back-story! meet the pair:

Fahap and Garl

boooooo hives

i know this isn't a journal but i figured i'd just tell you that i woke up with hives today on my neck, torso, and arms. they itch! i went to cowell student health center, paid $6 for a parking permit and promptly found out i could park for free in front of the health center as long as i checked in, and was seen by the doctor there. neither of us have any idea what caused the hives, but it could be any number of things and i'll probably never find out. pretty easy treatment: claritin and/or benadryl. the bummer is that i had to miss my internship this morning and i was really looking forward to going. i only hope that i find a glove today. it would make my day a whole lot brighter!

bummer, rain today. that means taking the bus to school and fewer chances of finding gloves on the way. on the other hand, rain makes people more likely to wear gloves. i guess it's a trade-off. despite the low odds of finding one, i decided to take a plastic grocery bag with me today in case i ran into a soggy glove. after getting out of my evening class 30 minutes before the bus was due to leave, i decided to walk from kleiber hall across campus to the bus stop by central park. i thought the walk would take up some time and perhaps i would come upon a glove on the way. after walking for only 45 seconds, i found one! a purple glove, crumpled and wet, lying on the sidewalk all alone. i announced joyfully to my mom, (who was on the phone with me) "oh! found a glove! found a glove. purple glove. awesome." i think the guy that walked past me on the sidewalk at that moment thought i was crazy. oh well. a purple glove! i was hoping for a colored glove this time. yayyyy! ok well, unfortunately i forgot to take a picture of the glove in its environment, but i think i made up for it with the final transformation.


meet Derpen!

another homeless glove

after having a lovely dinner at sam's mediterranean with amy and nina, i donned my gloves and earmuffs to bike home to do some homework. i had been vigilantly keeping an eye out all day for stray gloves but had found none. then, to my great delight, i spotted one lying in the bike lane on B street! i skidded to a stop (i really need to stop doing that), made a quick u-turn, and rescued the glove from the treacherous asphalt. smiling, i hurried home, singing with my ipod as i went.

once home, it was the same drill as before with Dug. i washed the glove in the sink and ran it through the dryer. i had to run to the nugget to get more cotton balls because i knew this glove would need a whole lot. my prediction proved accurate: i stuffed it with 105 cotton balls! i cut the lower part in half and sewed two legs, bent the middle finger down and sewed it in place to serve as a nose, and pinned down the pinky finger to make it an arm. after adding button eyes and a thread mouth, Glumbo was complete!









she enjoys cooking.

the beginning

i was biking the davis bike loop today, keeping an eye out for lost gloves. lo and behold, right by the cuarto dorms, i spotted one! i skidded to the stop, hopped off my bike, and rescued it. tucking the glove safely into my bag, i continued on my way.

once i got home, i washed the glove with laundry detergent in the sink and then tossed it in the dryer. finally, after what seemed like a long time in the dryer, it was ready to be transformed.

in lieu of fiberfill (since michael's doesn't carry any and i'm NOT going back to woodland to try and locate jo-ann fabrics), i opted to use cotton balls. i shredded them up into a fluffy consistency and stuffed the glove til it was filled. i sewed the bottom, added two eyes, and formed the mouth.






and Dug is born!

introducing

well, here's a brand new blog! not much to see yet. but i guess i can tell you my intentions for this blog so you get an idea of what is in store.

ever walk down the street, ride the bus, or drive in your car and pass by a lonely glove lying in the gutter? do you ever wonder whose glove it used to be? how it got lost? if it's missed?

well, you'll never find the answers to those questions, unfortunately. and most of the time, those gloves are forgotten and gone forever. i often stop and contemplate those lonely lost gloves, debating whether or not to pick them up. up until now, i have just walked on by, leaving gloves to fend for themselves in the streets. but no more! gloves have feelings too, and they deserve a good home, damnit!

the lonesome gloves should not be abandoned forever! i will find the lost gloves, bring them home, clean them up and make them comfortable. i will help those lost gloves regain their former glory. they will become found!